ePIRLS Benchmarking at the PIRLS International Benchmarks

To provide an interpretation of the results summarized on the PIRLS achievement scale for reading comprehension at the fourth grade, PIRLS describes achievement at four points along the scale as international benchmarks: Advanced International Benchmark (625), High International Benchmark (550), Intermediate International Benchmark (475), and Low International Benchmark (400). To develop the descriptions, the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center conducted a scale anchoring analysis together with the PIRLS 2016 Reading Development Group (RDG). The descriptions of achievement at the International Benchmarks are based on the reading skills and strategies demonstrated by fourth grade students achieving at each level of the scale, respectively. Further detail about the scale anchoring methodology is provided in Chapter 13 of Methods and Procedures in PIRLS 2016.

For PIRLS 2016, the scale anchoring analysis was conducted for ePIRLS as well as PIRLS. This enabled reporting descriptions of ePIRLS achievement at the Advanced, High, Intermediate, and Low Benchmarks.

Overview of the ePIRLS 2016 Tasks and Items

The ePIRLS tasks and items used in 2016 were selected and developed based on the PIRLS 2016 Assessment Framework. The framework describes the PIRLS view of reading as an interactive process between the text and the reader and describes the ways that PIRLS measures students’ reading achievement. It specifies that the assessment texts and items should cover in equal amounts the two purposes that account for most of the reading done by young students in and out of school: literary and informational. The ePIRLS tasks assess reading for informational purposes, but on the Internet in an environment of interconnected webpages and a variety of visual and textual elements.

Just like PIRLS, the items accompanying the ePIRLS informational tasks measure four processes of comprehension: retrieving, straightforward inferencing, interpreting and integrating, and evaluating and critiquing. These are collapsed into two processes for reporting: retrieving and straightforward inferencing and interpreting, integrating, and evaluating.

There were five ePIRLS tasks simulating online informational reading similar to what might be required for school projects and reports. They were about science or social studies topics, including: “Mars,” “Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman doctor),” “Rainforests,” “Troy,” and “Animal Migration.” Two of the tasks—“Mars” and “Elizabeth Blackwell”—are released to provide examples of the ePIRLS tasks. To see the released examples, watch the ePIRLS 2016 Example Tasks video or Take the ePIRLS Assessment. Taking the ePIRLS test includes both released tasks in their entirety as they were given to students. You can type in your answers, and the scoring guides are provided at the end so you can check your answers.